Confederate Hellcat: Motorcycle Inspired by The Mahabharata

Image Courtesy Wall Street Journal

It is rare that one comes across someone saying that they have been inspired by the Hindu Epic Mahabharata. Specially in the day when ridiculing everything that is connected to Hinduism, Hindu spirituality or Hindu Epics is a fashion. This morning I read an article in Wall Street Journal about a master motorcycle designer Ed Jacobs and was heartened to note that he derives his inspiration from "Arjuna the silver-bright and unconquerable charioteer (should have been warrior) in the Mahabharata" among others.

Ed Jacobs is the chief designer at Confederate Motorcycles a boutique that manufactures custom, aesthetically designed, two wheeled beauties. I read the entire article and was awe struck by the attention to detail that makes this motorcycle the beauty that it is. Confederate's X132 Hellcat is their latest offering which is priced at $45,000 is one beauty on two wheels that will make every bike lover go weak in their knees.

According to the article Ed Jacobs got his inspiration to design motorcycles after he visited India and rode the Enfield Bullet to the Himalayas. He decided to work and build beautiful motorcycles that are aesthetic, functional and unique. I am glad that at least this individual has acknowledged that he derived inspiration from the Hindu Epic Mahabharata.

I wonder how many Indian designers of any kind - be it motorcycle or software or car would even think of the Mahabharata as a source of inspiration and even if they did how many would acknowledge the fact. Because if they did, there is every likelihood that the Indian media would brand them "right wing Hindutva fascists."

In my next blog post on the same topic I will discuss how motorcycles made in India could get a more intimate feel by simply renaming the models. It goes around to make a statement that we are aware of our heritage and are rooted in our culture, which unfortunately I think India is fast loosing.

Beading Designs

I am preparing for my final exams and of course what is the best way to take breaks. Create some new beading patterns which I might or might not implement in beads. I sure hope I will have the time and inclination to create them in beads/ seed beads during the winter break from school. For now here are the designs for evaluation by all my blog visitors and readers.

Native American Beading Patterns

I wanted to take a break between studies for the upcoming exam on Monday, so I decided to get creative and here is the result. This is a pattern to make a beaded bracelet leaning toward the Native American style. Once my exams are over I will try to create it in beads and post some pictures. For now let me know if the designs are worth anything at all...

New Font!!!

I have been working on the online platform at Fontstruct to create my own fonts. I have worked on and created about 10 different typographic designs and two image fonts or design fonts like the wingdings. This is one of the fonts I recently created and there are other works in progress which I will complete as soon as I have time, motivation and a computer with internet connection at hand. Coming together of all these factors is some sort of a challenge because at work it is impossible, at school it is difficult and the rest of the time is at home where I have to study. Anyway here is one font I recently created, you could download and use it as you please.

Free Wallpapers

I don't claim to be an artist of any kind... I just scribble with a pencil or pen like a child who has nothing to do. Similarly when I get access to a computer design software that is what I try to do and often the results turn out like the one below... I use the final output file as a wallpaper for a few days and then discard it in the trash bin of the computer.

A thin font created by me...

Font creation is a great way to play with your design sense. It is not about one letter but about the entire alphabet and related punctuation marks. It is not good enough to have a great sense of design to create a font, but one needs to have forethought, and a sense of organization to be able to conceive the entire alphabet and create the font.
I will continue to work on more fonts and share them right here on my blog.

New Artworks

I have been twiddling my thumbs doing pretty much nothing so I explored the web and downloaded a trail version of the Gif Animator software and played around with it. Here is one of the animations I created.

Creating Artworks

Here is a bookmark I created while exploring the options presented in InkScape, the freeware alternate for CorelDRAW. The software is indeed good with a few glitches, but then when compared to $500 plus which has to be spent to buy CorelDraw I'd rather live with the glitches. I will work on the software more and try to come up with more designs. Feel free to copy and use them in your blog/ site, one request though attribute them to me and if possible give a link to my blog.